Reading Harry Potter
by imafeckingstarr
Summary: Remus Lupin stumbles across a book from the future – Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. Taking the book and heading off to the Head's dorm, the Marauders along with Lily, Alice and Frank, read the book... Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
1. Moony Found a Book!

_**Reading Harry Potter**_

_**By imafeckingstarr **_

_Summary: Remus Lupin stumbles across in the Library a book from the future – Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. Taking the book and heading off to the Head's dorm, they sit and read this book along with Lily Evans, Frank Longbottom and Alice Little, learning all about the future. Are they able to change the future for the better, or will all their efforts be merely useless?_

"We're listening to _música_ in the _bibliotheque_!" – The amazingly wonderful Lily Orange.

A/N: So, here's my version of those fan fiction's that are similarly along the lines of "The Marauders read Harry Potter" or "Lily and the Marauders Read Harry Potter". I hope you like it!

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><p>'<em>Moony Found a Book!'<em>

James Potter lay in the Head's dorm, his eyes transfixed on the ceiling. There was nothing remotely different or interesting about the ceiling, he just wanted to look at it. He blinked once, twice, and again, until he was bored of just blinking and seeing nothing but the creamy-whiteness of the ceiling that made up his dorm. "Right, that's it, I'm getting something to do," he declared, talking mostly to himself. Lily Evans was (as usual) avoiding him. It was just as much as a shock to him as it was her when he was appointed Head Boy, but was there any need to be so blunt about her clear distaste about him having such an honourable title? Knowing Lily, she was probably in the Gryffindor Common Room or the Library reading something of no importance – she did that a lot.

What was so fascinating about reading? James just couldn't put his finger on why it was so…_fun._ He chuckled at the thought. Since when would he refer to reading as _fun_? Even if it _was_ in a sarcastic way, he never thought he'd live to see the day. Stretching and standing up, James decided that it was time for him to embrace the solitude of the Library and find Remus. He was probably there, reading about Transfiguration or Charms. Or helping Sirius out with his holiday homework that he'd conveniently "forgotten" to do, which even Remus knew was a lie, Sirius never did any of his homework during the holidays. Not that James could blame him. Who would _want_ to do their homework during the holidays? He certainly didn't, and Peter Pettigrew didn't do his homework during the holidays either. That James knew quite well. Poor Peter didn't understand his homework enough to bother doing it; it was a surprise to James that Peter actually managed to pass his O.W.L's. The poor boy was hopeless.

James left his room and entered the common room. But before leaving, he peered into the bathroom and grinned. There in the right hand corner was a gold toilet. He and Sirius had some Marauder christening to do. They were going to christen it the "Golden Marauder Toilet!" and get it to sing their special Marauder song "A Little Less Conversation – Elvis Vs JXL" every time someone used it. It wasn't the most effective way of using the toilet, but it was still some impressive charm work. It was going to take a while too, but it was going to be totally and utterly worth it. James practically danced out into the common room and out into the corridor. This was just another tactic to decrease his boredom. Needless to say, it worked like a charm. He wasn't as bored as he was when he finally reached the library – he was dancing and singing to the Beatles, James really did give the passer-by's a good show to watch. Arms flinging round, head banging and fake stage-dives; James really did know how to please a crowd.

"Prongs… what in the name of Merlin are you doing?" Sirius asked as he turned the corner, watching James with amusement in his eyes. "Dancing, Pads, I'm _dancing. _I had nothing better to do, so I decided to find Moony in the Library and I began to dance and sing because of the Marauder christening we've got to do later…" James panted with a roguish grin plastered across his face, a mad gleam in his dark brown eyes. Sirius laughed, "We have a christening to do?" He questioned, his eyebrow raised.

"Oh yeah… There's a golden toilet in the Heads common room… one for the Head boy and another for the Head girl…"

"A GOLDEN TOILET? SAY NO MORE PRONGSIE BABY, SAY NO MORE!" Sirius exclaimed gleefully, jumping up and down like a child on Christmas day, "Let's go get Moony and fill him in on our mission!" He yelled a crazy gleam in his eyes. James grinned at his best friend as the pair of them made their way into the library to find their friend and fellow marauder.

The School library was quiet, save the scribbling of quills on parchment and the turning of a page in a book. Two pairs of eyes belonging to the troublesome duo scanned their surroundings, "Where is he?" Sirius huffed, his eyebrows knitting together forming a confused crease on his forehead. James shrugged as he walked forward, heading towards the back of the library.

"Knowing Moony, he'll be at the back, reading in a corner on his own," He muttered, beckoning for Sirius to follow him.

They walked for a while, taking their time as they walked between shelves upon shelves that were filled to the brim with all sorts of books. There were books on Transfiguration and Potions, others on Defensive Spells and how to use them and others on Magical Scary Beasts and how to protect yourself if you ever come across one. Somewhere jammed within these books was a battered edition of _Hogwarts: A History, _Lily Evans's favourite book.

"Over there," Sirius whispered, pointing to his left. James turned his head and his eyes latched onto the sandy-haired boy sitting on his own, with several books littered across the table he was sitting at. Remus Lupin appeared to be deep in thought, a frown plastered across his face and a book in his hands. He turned the page, his eyes scanning it, drinking in the contents.

"MOO-NY." Sirius sang as he skipped to the table. Remus' head snapped up from the book and he smiled, "I wondered when you two would come and find me," He mused, closing the book. James just grinned at him as he walked over.

"It's not the same without you Moony!" Sirius cried, flinging himself into a hug and fake-sobbing into Remus' shoulder, using his infamous theatrics.

"There, there Sirius," Remus muttered, pulling a face at James as he did. James did everything he could to stop himself from laughing. "Come _on_ Moony! We have a MARAUDER CHRISTENING to attend to!" Sirius sang, giving up on his theatrics and dancing around the table like a pansy. James mimicked his actions, singing along with Sirius in a very inappropriate manner.

Out of nowhere, as Remus laughed at his idiotic friends, a book landed on his head with a thud, and slipped onto the floor. "What in the name of Merlin… ur, Prongs?" Remus called, his eyes diverting to the front cover of the book. James and Sirius continued to dance around the table, acting a lot more feminine than they usually would.

"Yes Moony?" James said in a silly sing-song voice that made him sound like he was the next Marilyn Monroe.

"Do you have a relative called Harry Potter?" The dancing pansies stopped dead in their tracks, "What?" James asked; a confounded look upon his face.

"I said 'do you have a relative called Harry Potter' – his name's on the front of this book… and he looks rather similar to you," Remus replied, bending down and picking up the book. The book was a pale red, with an image of a boy and the Hogwarts Express on the front of it. Surrounding the image there were gold stars, and where the golden title and the white subheading was, the box was a dark blue colour. It was the strangest book Remus had ever seen.

Opening up the book and reading the first two pages, Remus almost let the book slip through his fingers, "Dear Merlin, it was written in 1997!"

"You've got to be kidding me!" Sirius and James yelled in unison, both running to see the book for themselves. "_First published in Great Britain in 1997 – Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 38 Soho Square, London W1D 3HB_ – Bloody hell!" James read aloud, his eyes wide.

Sirius turned the page, and inside, blue-tacked to the page of the first chapter was a note. Remus pulled the book out of Sirius' and James' clutches and read it out loud.

"_Dear reader, I'm guessing whoever's reading this might be one of the Marauders. Well, that's what I'm hoping for. Is this Remus or Sirius? Or are you the infamous James Potter? Gods, wouldn't it be nice to know who got this book first? I bet you're wondering who I am. For now, let's just say I'm a friend… a very, very odd friend. Is Peter with you? Merlin I hope not – you'll understand my distaste later. If he's not there, don't tell him about your discovery. Please listen to me when I tell you he's not to be trusted. Everything will be explained later. Right, yeah, the book… would you believe me if I told you that this book's from the future? No? Well it is. It's based on a boy who was destined to destroy the Dark Lord. There are seven books in total, all about his seven, sorry, six years at Hogwarts; the final book is about his final journey to destroy Ol' Voldykins—"_

Sirius snorted, "I like this kid. Why did we not think of Voldykins?" Remus glowered at him, and Sirius allowed him to continue.

"_I presume one of you is head boy? Is it James? Ha! How ironic if he is. Honestly boys, I love you guys, and this is why I've sent you the first book of the series. Once you've read this, the rest of the series will appear. You'll be able to save lives this way – again, you'll understand what I mean once you've read these books. The information within these books must be taken seriously and considered wisely. Also, I have a request – read these books in the Head Common Room, get Lily Evans, Frank Longbottom and Alice Little involved too. Yes, I understand Lily detests James at the moment… but I have my reasons. Please listen to me, and help me change the future for the better. I'm counting on you guys. _

_The weight of the wizarding worlds' future lies in your hands,  
>E.R.B."<em>

Remus looked up at his friends. They were both in shock. Who was this E.R.B?

"Is this for real?" James asked finally.

"I think so… shall we get the others involved?" Remus asked, and the others simply nodded. "I wonder why this person doesn't want Peter to find out what we've discovered," Sirius muttered.

"Where the hell is Wormtail anyway?" James asked as he, Sirius and Remus left. Remus chuckled, which got him funny looks from his friends, "He fell up the stairs on the way to the library and had to go to the Hospital wing,"

Sirius roared with laughter, as it was typical of the boy to do such a foolish act, "Poor bloke, he really needs to fix himself up, don't you agree?"

James shook his head, laughing, "Lets just find the others and find out what this book's about,"

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><p><em>So, I started one of these "the-Marauders-read-the-Harry-Potter-series-and-change-the-future-for-the-better" fictions. If you guys like this, and if I get lots of reviews, I'll consider putting up the next chapter. Does that sound fair? <em>

_I'll be updating "The Adventure of a Marauder" soon, so keep your eyes peeled!_

_Don't forget to review!_  
><em>muchlove,<em>  
><em>imafeckingstarr xxxxx<em>


	2. The Boy Who Lived

_**Reading Harry Potter**_

_**By imafeckingstarr **_

_Summary: Remus Lupin stumbles across in the Library a book from the future – Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. Taking the book and heading off to the Head's dorm, they sit and read this book along with Lily Evans, Frank Longbottom and Alice Little, learning all about the future. Are they able to change the future for the better, or will all their efforts be merely useless?_

A/N: Tra-la-la-la! Mmm, another chapter, which means more Marauder fun! Hurray! I want to dedicate this chapter to my friends, Lily Orange, Tanny Apple, Stephy Sue, stinkypiebanana, QueenOfSleep and Potter-Charmed Child – you guys are amazing :)

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><p>'<em>The Boy Who Lived'<em>

"This better be worth it Potter," Lily Evans scowled at the messy-haired Quidditch player in front of her. She, James, Remus, Sirius, Frank and Alice were sitting on the sofas in the Heads Common Room and were being informed on the book that landed on Remus' head in the library.

"The note said that we had to get you three involved. It also said that we couldn't tell Peter anything and that we'd find out why later," Remus explained, his eyes looking at the note that was no longer in the book. Lily flicked a strand of her long, red hair behind her shoulder, "Is this some sort of joke you guys have planned? Because I don't find this very funny," She sighed, glaring at James and Sirius.

"Don't know why you're looking at us Evans, why would _we_ make a book land on Moony's head?" Sirius enquired, raising an eyebrow. Frank sniggered as Lily huffed in defeat. He had a point. Why _would_ they do that?

"If you guys don't mind, I really want to find about this Harry Potter kid, so can we just get on with the reading?" James asked with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "I agree with James," Alice nodded, "Remus, would you like to read first?" She asked politely, Alice was just as curious as the rest of them to why they were requested by this anonymous person.

"Yeah, sure, okay Alice." Remus replied curtly, and he opened the book.

"**The Boy Who Lived,**" He read, and he gave the others a puzzling look.

**Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.**

Lily gasped her hand flying to her mouth. Surely it couldn't be? Who else would have a surname of _Dursley_ and live in Privet Drive?

"Lily? Are you okay?" Remus asked, and she just nodded, "Please continue Remus," Lily whispered and Remus continued.

**They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they didn't hold with such nonsense. Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large moustache. Mrs Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences spying on the neighbours.**

James chortled loudly, and Remus stopped to look at him, "What a contrasting pair!"

Lily kept quiet, nibbling on the thumb nail. "Evans?" Sirius frowned, looking over at her, "I think… no, I know that the people the book has just described are my sister Petunia and her fiancée Vernon." She murmured, loud enough for the others to hear.

"Whoa, really?" Frank asked, and Lily nodded, "She got engaged to him two weeks ago, and they're living together – Number Four, Privet Drive,"

"Crikey, poor you Lily," Alice sighed, scooting over to sit next to her friend. "Guys, can I continue please?" Remus asked, and the group nodded.

**The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley –** ("Blimey! Poor kid, what a name! Dudley Dursley!" "Sirius, shut up!") **and in their opinion there was no other finer boy anywhere. The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bare it if anyone found out about the Potters.**

"Hey!" James shouted, suddenly very furious, "What's wrong with the Potters?"

"Do you want me to go there, Potter?" Lily asked sarcastically.

**Mrs Potter was Mrs Dursleys sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be.**

"Oh dear Merlin, no!" Lily groaned, putting her head in her hands. James however, jumped up and punched the air, cheering loudly, "YES! I MARRY LILY!"

**The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbours would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son too, but they had never seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.**

"A child like what, exactly?" Lily roared suddenly, not taking into account that she was having James Potter's son in the future.

**When Mr and Mrs Dursley woke up ****on the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts, ****there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.**

"This kid sounds like a spoilt brat," Sirius commented, pulling a face.

**None of them noticed a large tawny owl flutter past the window.**

"Not surprised they didn't notice anything, they sound like they have selected sight or something," James mumbled with an eye roll. Lily glowered at him, indicating for him to shut up.

**At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek and tried to kiss Dudley goodbye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing cereal at the walls.**

"Someone's in a bad mood," Alice giggled, and Lily nodded in agreement, "He doesn't sound like a pleasant kid, does he?" Lily murmured.

**"Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive.**

**It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar - a cat reading a map.**

"IT'S MCGONAGALL!" Everyone yelled, laughing as they did.

**For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realise what he had seen -then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight.**

**What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive - No, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs.**

**Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove towards town, he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.**

"Sirius, two sickles its McGonagall," Frank grinned, outstretching his hand to the marauder. "Alright Longbottom, you're _on._" Sirius laughed, betting on it.

"Boys," Lily and Alice sighed, shaking their heads. "Can I continue reading now?" Remus asked, exasperated.

**But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes - the get-ups you saw on young people!**

"Wizards?" Frank asked with a frown, "But why would they wear such extravagant clothing in front of muggles?"

**He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdoes standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt - these people were obviously collecting for something... yes, that would be it.**

"Surely there must be some perfectly normal explanation to why people of our kind are parading around muggle towns in such attire?" Lily asked.

"Maybe some big event happened?" Sirius suggested.

"Yeah, maybe..."

**The traffic moved on, and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings car park, his mind back on drills.**

**Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning.**

**He didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though the people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead.**

"How peculiar, even the owls are being spotted!" Alice gasped.

**Most of them had never seen an owl even at night time. Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled a five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunch-time, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the baker's opposite.**

**He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. This lot were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.**

**"The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard -"**

**"- Yes, their son, Harry -"**

"Harry? I wonder what's happened," Sirius though aloud, and there were murmurs of agreements. "Oh please don't anything bad to have happened to him," Lily said, worry etched in her eyes.

"If you get scared or upset Lily, my shoulder's open for your tears," James suggested with a mad amount of enthusiasm.

"In your dreams Potter,"

**Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.**

**He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone and had almost finished dialling his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his moustache, thinking...**

**No, he was being stupid. Potter wasn't such an unusual name.**

"Well it certainly isn't original," Sirius joked, and Remus chuckled.

**He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew was called Harry. He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold. There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her - if he'd had a sister like that... but all the same, those people in cloaks...**

**He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon, and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.**

**"Sorry," he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell.**

**It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realised that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice-**

"OH MY MERLIN! IT'S FLITWICK!" Alice squealed, "Why isn't he at Hogwarts?"

"Why's McGonagall at the Dursley's?" James asked, "Something isn't right."

**that made passers-by stare: "Don't be sorry my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like your self should be celebrating this happy, happy day!"**

"He's gone! Bloody hell! Lets celebrate!" Sirius cheered. James snorted, "He's still around you moron, just not in this book,"

Sirius looked crestfallen, "Oh yeah... because I knew that,"

**And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.**

**Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was.**

**He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination.**

**As he pulled into the driveway at number four, the first thing he saw - and it didn't improve his mood - was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.**

"That's _so_ McGonagall, you owe me two sickles Black," Frank laughed. Sirius grunted something, but no-one heard him.

**Was this normal cat behaviour? Mr. Dursley wondered.**

"Duh, this isn't a normal cat, idiot," James sneered, rolling his eyes.

"And he talks to a book," Lily giggled.

**Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.**

**Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learnt a new word (Shan't).**

"Is that even a word?" Alice asked; a bemused expression on her face.

"Well if it wasn't, it wouldn't be in a book would it?" Sirius replied, suddenly feeling very smart.

**Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living-room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:**

**"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The news reader allowed himself a grin. "Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?"**

**"Well, Ted," said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain that I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars!**

"Shoot...shooting stars?" Lily stammered, "Wow, people really have gone crazy,"

**Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters...Mrs. Dursley came into the living-room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er - Petunia, dear - you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?" ****As he expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister.**

"You horrid cow!" Lily snapped. The others nodded in agreement.

**"No," she said sharply. "Why?"**

**"Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls... shooting stars... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today..."**

**"So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley.**

**"Well, I just thought... maybe... it was something to do with... you know... her lot."**

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Dursley?" Sirius roared.

"Sirius... it's just a book,"

"Yeah, a book about the _future_!"

**Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name 'Potter'.**

**He decided he didn't dare. Instead he said, as casually as he could, "Their son - he'd be about Dudley's age now wouldn't he?"**

**"I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly.**

**"What's his name again? Howard isn't it?"**

**"Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."**

"Hey!" James and Lily yelled in unison.

"**Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree."**

**He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it was waiting for something.**

**Was he imagining things?**

**Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did ... if it got out that they were related to a pair of - well, he didn't think he could bear it.**

**The Dursley's got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind ... He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on. He yawned and turned over. It couldn't affect them...**

**How very wrong he was.**

"I don't like the sound of that," Alice shuddered.

**Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed in the next street, nor when the two owls swooped overhead.**

**In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.**

"Gods, she did that to us once, remember?" Sirius chuckled, and James and Remus shuddered, "Please don't remind me, we almost wet ourselves," Remus answered.

"Why, what happened?" Frank asked, interested in why the infamous pranking group almost wet themselves at the sight of their head of house.

"Well, we were sneaking off to the kitchens, midnight raid y'know? Well, she must have overheard us speaking about it, because there she was, stiff as a pole in her animagus form." James laughed, "Yes, enough of the reminiscing, and on with the story,"

**A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground.**

**The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.**

**Nothing like this man had been seen in Privet Drive. He was tall, thin and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt.**

"Dumbledore," Lily smiled.

"No duh," Sirius grinned, laughing at himself.

**He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak which swept the ground and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore.**

"The description is very accurate, don't you think?" Lily laughed lightly, Alice and Frank agreed.

"The description alone tells us who he is anyway," James grinned.

**Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realise that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realise he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."**

"Do you think he's recognised McGonagall?" Lily asked, "Probably, not that hard too if I'm honest," Frank shrugged.

**He had found what he was looking for in his inside pocket.**

**It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop.**

"I don't have a clue what it's called, but I heard he invented it himself," Sirius butted in, getting an infamous death glare from Remus.

**He clicked it again - the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left in the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him.**

**If anyone looked out of their window now, even the beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street towards number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat.**

**He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.**

**"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."**

"KNEW IT! Sirius, you totally owe me two sickles!" Frank sang gleefully, Sirius sighed handing over the money reluctantly.

**He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.**

**"How did you know it was me?" she asked.**

**"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."**

**"You'd be stiff too if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.**

**"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."**

**Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.**

**"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no - even the Muggles noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls ... shooting stars ... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent - I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."**

"Neither do I; and we all know I'd do it," Sirius mused in thought.

"At least you admit that you don't have much sense Black," Lily grinned.

"**You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."**

**"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes swapping rumours."**

"Rumours?" Frank asked, neither of them liked that idea.

**She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on: "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"**

**"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a sherbet lemon?"**

**"A what?"**

**"A sherbet lemon. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."**

"Trust Dumbledore to be obsessed with Muggle sweets,"

"Potter, shut up!"

**"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for sherbet lemons.**

**"As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -"**

**"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like your self can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense - for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort".**

"Why call him Voldemort when you can just call him Mouldy Voldy?" Sirius asked with a dramatic sigh.

"Because you idiotic nincompoop, if he ever found out, we'd all be dead," Lily snapped.

"Ha-ha! Burn," James exclaimed excitedly.

**Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was un-sticking two sherbet lemons, seemed not to notice.**

**"It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name." "I know you haven't," said Professor McGonagall, sounding half-exasperated, half-admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the one You-Know - oh, all right, Voldemort was frightened of"**

**"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."**

**"Only because you're too - well - noble to use them."**

**"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."**

Everyone in the room laughed, it was typical of Dumbledore to say something totally random but still make sense. The thought of him blushing only made them laugh harder.

**Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, "The owls are nothing to the rumours that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?" It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now.**

**It was plain that whatever 'everyone' was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another sherbet lemon and did not answer.**

Remus stopped reading, as he had read on. He paled, a lump formed in his throat. "Remus?" Lily called, "Are you alright?"

He just nodded and continued to read.

**"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumour is that Lily and James Potter are - are - that they're - dead.**"

"W-what?" Lily stammered. James' face paled as Remus read out the lines from the book. Lily began to cry quietly. Sirius was quiet, and Alice and Frank were no longer making odd comments.

"Hey, hey, shh, come here," James murmured soothingly, scooting over to comfort Lily. She accepted his offer, and continued to cry into his shirt. James nodded at Remus, asking him to continue.

**Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.**

**"Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe it... Oh, Albus..."**

"Didn't know McGonagall cared so much for us," James said, a sad smile on his lips.

**Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "I know... I know..." he said heavily.**

**Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry."**

"WHAT?" Screamed James, Lily, Sirius and Remus in shock and rage. Frank and Alice covered their ears to protect their hearing. Why, in the name of Merlin, would Voldemort go after a little kid?

**"But - he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke - and that's why he's gone."**

"Minerva McGonagall say what?" Sirius gasped.

**Dumbledore nodded glumly.**

**"It's - it's true?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done ... all the people he's killed ... he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding ...of all the things to stop him ... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"**

**"We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know."**

"That kid must be bloody powerful," Sirius commented, James nodding in agreement. Lily stopped crying, and lifted her head to wipe away her tears, "Sorry Pot—James, I seem to have ruined your shirt,"

James laughed, "It doesn't matter, there's plenty more where that came from,"

**Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took out a watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"**

"Aw Hagrid, he's such an adorable person," Alice cooed.

**"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?"**

**"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."**

"Dear Merlin, no! Don't leave Harry with them!" Lily shouted at the book, practically pleading with it.

"**You don't mean - you can't mean the people who live here?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore - you can't."**

"**I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son - I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!"**

"Well, at least McGonagall agrees with you Lily," Sirius commented with a laugh.

**"It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."**

**"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous - a legend - I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day in future - there will be books written about Harry - every child in our world will know his name!"**

"Meaning everyone and anyone would be willing to take him in," James sighed.

**"Exactly," said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can't you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?"**

"Seems like Dumbledore has Harry's best interests at heart, doesn't it? He doesn't want him to be arrogant like his father, or big headed, like his fathers best friend," Lily laughed.

"Hey!" Sirius and James yelled.

**Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed and then said, "Yes - yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here Dumbledore?"**

**She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it.**

**"Hagrid's bringing him."**

**You think it - wise - to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"**

**"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore.**

"Why wouldn't she trust Hagrid?" Frank asked, "Merlin knows," Alice shrugged.

"Hey Merlin, why doesn't McGonagall trust Hagrid?" Sirius called up at the ceiling, causing everyone to laugh at him.

**"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to - what was that?"**

**A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky - and a huge motorbike fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.**

"Is it...? Merlin, it must be!" Sirius exclaimed excitedly.

**If the motorbike was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild - long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of dustbin lids and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.**

**"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorbike?"**

**"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorbike as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it me."**

"Woot! It's my bike! Yeah baby! I wonder why I leant it him."

"Sirius shut up,"

"Sorry,"

"**I've got him, sir."**

**"No problems, were there?"**

**"No, sir - house was almost destroyed but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we were flyin' over Bristol."**

**Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.**

"He has my hair!" James squealed excitedly.

"Poor kid," Sirius joked, winking at his best friend.

**"Is that where - ?" whispered Professor McGonagall.**

**"Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar for ever."**

**"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"**

"Don't you dare! It shows how brave my son is!" James yelled, pointing at the book like it was a person.

**"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in useful. I have one myself above my left knee which is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well - give him here, Hagrid - we'd better get this over with."**

**Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and turned towards the Dursleys' house.**

**"Could I - could I say goodbye to him, sir?" asked Hagrid.**

**He bent his great shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss.**

**Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.**

"Aww, Hagrid's heart was always in the right place," Alice cooed again. Frank just rolled his eyes.

**"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall. "You'll wake the Muggles!"**

**"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it - Lily an' James dead - an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles -"**

**"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out...**

"Are they really going to leave him on the doorstep?" Lily asked uncertainly.

**"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."**

**"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice. "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall - Professor Dumbledore, sir."**

"Woot! I have an awesome bike!" Sirius exclaimed, causing the rest of the group to "shh" him.

**Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself on to the motorbike and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.**

**"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.**

**Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street.**

**He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.**

**"Good luck, Harry," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak he was gone.**

**A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley ...He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!**

"And that's the end of the chapter," Remus concluded, a pained expression on his face. "Can... can I read the next chapter?" Lily asked, and Remus nodded handing her the book.

"Well, here goes nothing," She breathed, turning the page.

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><p><em>Read and Review and tell me what you think!<em>

_muchlove,  
>imafeckingstarr xxxx <em>


	3. The Vanishing Glass

_**Reading Harry Potter**_

_**By imafeckingstarr **_

_Summary: Remus Lupin stumbles across in the Library a book from the future – Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. Taking the book and heading off to the Head's dorm, they sit and read this book along with Lily Evans, Frank Longbottom and Alice Little, learning all about the future. Are they able to change the future for the better, or will all their efforts be merely useless?_

A/N: I haven't updated this in a while. I'm so bloody useless. I'm going to write several chapters in advance so I can post them over the holidays – it'll give me something to do :') Anyway, I would like to give a huge thanks to everyone who has reviewed, put this on their alerts and favourites and even favourite authored me. It's people like you who encourage me to post stuff on here. Please check out the sequel to **A Riddle for Riddle** if you enjoyed reading that, it's called **The Adventure of a Marauder**.

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><p>'<em>The Vanishing Glass'<em>

"**The Vanishing Glass**," Lily read aloud. Alice shot Frank a questioning look, who gave her a look saying 'how-the-hell-should-_I_-know?' James kept his eyes firmly on the book that was in Lily's hands whilst Remus was prodding Sirius in the ribs with his wand to stop him from saying anything.

"Quit poking me in the ribs, for Merlin's sake!" Sirius growled, shoving his friend over, "I don't know about you, but I bloody well want to know what's going to happen next!"

"Hear, hear!" Frank mumbled. Lily shot them a piercing look, "If you idiots don't mind, I'd like to continue reading," She snapped.

**Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-coloured bobble hats - but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby –**

"Still has a stupid name," Sirius mumbled.

**-and now the photographs showed a large, blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a roundabout at the fair, playing a computer game with his father...**

"What's a computer game?" James asked suddenly, causing Lily to glower at him.

"Must be some muggle entertainment thing," She replied, restraining herself from saying it through her teeth, "Sure, massive companies and governments own computers now, but there aren't any games for them. Not that I'm aware of, anyway,"

Her eyes returning to the book, Lily continued to read.

...**being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.** **Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake, and it was her shrill voice which made the first noise of the day.**

**"Up! Get up! Now!"**

"I wish she would be more polite to him," Lily sighed, rolling her eyes at her sisters' future attitude. Not that it changed much.

"Why is it when I talk I get yelled and scolded at, but when Lily talks no-one says anything?" Sirius whined childishly.

"Lily's reading the chapter. That's why," Alice replied with an eye roll.

**Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.****  
><strong>**"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking towards the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. He rolled on to his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.**

"No Harry sweetie, it was real," Lily sighed dreamily.

**His aunt was back outside the door.  
>"Are you up yet?" she demanded.<br>"Nearly," said Harry.**

**"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."**

There was suddenly a cacophony of sniggers as Petunia referred to her child as "Duddy". Sirius couldn't contain the laughter that was about to erupt and soon enough he burst, roaring hysterically.

**Harry groaned.****  
><strong>**"What did you say?" his aunt snapped through the door.****  
><strong>**"Nothing, nothing ..."****  
><strong>**Dudley's birthday - how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.**

"WHAT?" James yelled, anger flashing in his eyes.

"Evil horse faced sister say _what_?" Lily shouted, "She keeps my son locked in a _cupboard?_ Oh I'm going to kill her,"

**When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had got the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike.**

"Sounds like expensive stuff," Remus said wearily. Everyone nodded in agreement.

**Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise - unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favourite punch-bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.**

"Where's my wand?" Sirius snapped. Jumping across quickly, Frank grabbed Sirius' wand which was lying on the floor, "Longbottom give me my wand! I'm going to hex that boy so hard he won't know what hit him!"

"Minor problem Black," Frank sniggered, "The kid isn't alive yet,"

Sirius quietened now, his face contemplative, "Oh yeah,"

**Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was.**

"Sirius I think I might join you when you say you're going to hex that kid. I'm going to hex my sister too," Lily remarked, hatred swimming through her voice.

**Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes.**

"Oh, Harry has my eyes!" Lily cooed adoringly.

"Have I ever said that your eyes are absolutely gorgeous Lily?" James asked seductively.

"Yes, several times," Lily, Remus, Sirius, Frank and Alice replied in unison; causing each other to laugh.

**He wore round glasses held together by a lot of Sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose.**

Sirius, who was extremely angry with all the muggles in the book, ran off to find a piece of parchment and several quills. "Uh, Padfoot, what's that for?" Remus asked, quite afraid of the answer.

"Plotting revenge on people, especially _these_ people," Sirius replied.

**The only thing Harry liked about his appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead which was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it as long as he could remember and the first question he could ever remember asking his aunt was how he had got it.**

**"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said.**

"LIAR!" Remus and Sirius screamed, "THEYDIDN'T DIE IN A BLOODY CAR CRASH!"

Quickly grabbing one of the quills, Sirius began to scribble stuff down on the parchment. Too angry for words, Remus did the same.

"Looks like the parchment and quills came in handy," Frank muttered to Alice, who nodded.

**"and don't ask questions."**

**Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.  
>Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.<strong>

**"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.**

"Hey! It's not his fault his father's hair is genetic! It bloody _grows_ that way!" Alice growled.

"Besides, my hair's _amazing_," James mumbled, snatching the quill out of Sirius' hand and adding something to the list.

"You wish Potter," Lily mumbled before she continued to read.

**About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way - all over the place.**

**Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large, pink face, not muck neck, small, watery blue eyes and thick, blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel - Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.**

"Brilliant!" Sirius laughed as he rolled around on the floor laughing, "Prongs he's inherited your humour!" He exclaimed gleefully.

**Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile was counting his presents. His face fell.**

**"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."**

"Spoilt brat," Remus, Lily and Alice spat.

**"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."**

"Dear Merlin, he still refers to his parents as Mummy and Daddy?" Sirius chortled.

**"All right then, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face.**

"Ungrateful little shit," Frank snarled.

"I second that," James said, saluting him.

**Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.**

**Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another**_**two**_**presents while we're out today. How's that popkin?**_**Two**_**more presents. Is that all right?"**

**Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work.**

"I bloody bet it is!" James snapped, "Buying him _more_ presents because he had less than the year before. Spoiling him rotten isn't going to do _anything_!"

**Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty ... thirty ..."**

"He can't even count, sweet mother of Merlin," Remus groaned, shaking his head.

**"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.**

**"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."**

**Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair**.

"Your encouragement isn't going to help him Dursley you ass!" Lily hissed. She wished she could write something down on the parchment too, but she was the one reading.

**At that moment the telephone rang**

"What's a telephone?" James and Sirius asked. Lily refused to answer.

"It's a device that muggles use to communicate with each other. Did you two not pay attention in Muggle Studies?" Alice asked, sounding exasperated.

"No, I was too busy fantasizing about the new Muggle Studies Professor," Sirius winked, a cheesy smile plastered across his face.

"You are despicable," Lily groaned.

**and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a cine-camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games and a video recorder. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone, looking both angry and worried.**

**"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction.**

**Dudley's mouth fell open in horror but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday his parents took him and a friend to, adventure parks, hamburger bars or the cinema. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away.**

Furious, everyone minus Lily scrambled for the quills to add stuff to the list, the list Sirius referred to as the "revenge list against everyone who is against Harry". It was almost filled to the bottom with random jinxes and curses – most of them aimed at the Dursleys.

**Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at all the cats she'd ever owned.**

**"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this.**

**Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws and Tufty again.**

**"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.**

**"Don't be silly Vernon, she hates the boy."**

**The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there - or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.**

Lily threw the book at the wall and grabbed a quill, "Bloody mad woman, I'll show you... hex... not good enough..." she muttered, adding more stuff to the list. Sirius snickered at the sight. He never thought he'd see the day when Lily Evans – _Head Girl_ – would condone to violence. Once she was finished adding her parts of the "revenge plan" Lily walked over and picked up the book and continued to read like nothing had happened.

**"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?"**

**"On holiday in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.**

**"You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer.)**

**Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.**

"Sounds attractive," Sirius commented.

**"And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.**

**"I won't blow up the house," said Harry, but they weren't listening.**

**"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "... and leave him in the car ..."**

**"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone ..."**

"Bloody take him with you then you daft bats!" James roared at the book, "Taking him out with you isn't going to kill you!"

**Dudley began to cry loudly.**

"Baby," Remus commented nastily.

**In fact he wasn't really crying, it had been years since he'd really cried, but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.**

"Spoilt brat!" Everyone hissed at the book.

**"Dinky Duddydums,**

"Dear Merlin, there goes the nicknames," Frank sniggered, causing everyone to laugh along with him.

**don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.**

"Dinky Duddydums don't cry! Mummy's here to save you!" Sirius mocked in a high pitched voice that was supposed to be Petunia. He sounded as if he'd exhaled too much helium from a balloon.

**"I ... don't ... want ... him ... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge pretend sobs. "He always sp-spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.**

**Just then, the doorbell rang - "Oh, Good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later, Dudley's best friend Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother.**

**Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat.**

"Charming description," Alice commented.

**He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them.**

"Sounds like a charming bloke if you ask me," James said, sarcasm tainting his voice.

**Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once. Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life.**

"About bloody time!" Lily and James snarled.

**His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.**

**"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, ****"I'm warning you now, boy –**

"He has a goddamn name!" Remus shouted.

**any funny business, anything at all - and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."**

**"I'm not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly ..." **

**But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No ever did.****  
><strong>**The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.**

**Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barber's looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his fringe, which she left 'to hide that horrible scar'.**

"He can't help it! IT GROWS THAT WAY!" James yelled, "It's bloody hereditary!"

**Dudley laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and his Sellotaped glasses. Next morning, however, he had got up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off.**

"Hah! Take that Dursleys!" Sirius exclaimed gleefully.

**He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.**

"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO SHEARED HIS HAIR OFF IN THE FIRST PLACE! OF COURSE THE GODDAMN UNTHINKABLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN! YOU HAVEN'T TOLD HIM ABOUT IS WIZARDLY POWERS!" James yelled so ferociously that the ceiling began to shake.

**Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old jumper of Dudley's (brown with orange bobbles). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a glove puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished.**

"Why can't they think of muggle explanations all the time instead of punishing him for something he has no control over yet?" Sirius asked exasperated.

**On the other hand, he'd got into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney.**

"Wow! Your son can _apparate_! Without even taking that stupid bloody test!" Sirius said joyously, thumping James on the back.

**The Dursley's had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big bins outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.**

**But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living-room.**

**While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank and Harry were just a few of his favourite subjects.**

"This man makes me sick," Alice snapped angrily.

**This morning, it was motorbikes. "... Roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorbike overtook them.**

**"I had a dream about a motorbike," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."**

**Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beetroot with a moustache, "MOTORBIKES DON'T FLY!"**

"THEY DO TOO!" Sirius yelled.

"Please someone, for the love of Merlin, don't buy Sirius a motorbike. Ever," Lily asked.

**Dudley and Piers snickered.**

**"I know they don't," said Harry.**"**It was only a dream."**

**But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even in a cartoon - they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.**

"No imagination? Oh I'm going to _kill_ those people!" Alice and Remus hissed.

**It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with people. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice-creams at the entrance and then,**

"They bloody well better get Harry one!" Alice snapped.

**because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice lolly. It wasn't bad either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head and looking remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.**

Everyone laughed, "I like this kid more and more Prongs! He will be the _perfect_ marauder!"

"As long as he stays out of trouble, I don't mind," Lily mumbled.

**Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys**

"Don't blame you kid, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them either," Sirius commented with a shrug.

**so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favourite hobby of hitting him.**

**They ate in the zoo restaurant and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbockers glory wasn't big enough, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first. ****Harry felt, afterwards, that he should have known it was all too good to last.**

"Oh no," Lily groaned, Alice groaned too, both of the fearing the worst.

**After lunch they went to the reptile house.**

Sirius sat up straight, eager for some action to happen. Lily shot him a disapproving look.

**It was cool and dark in here, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. ****Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place.**

**It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car, and crushed it into a dustbin -**

"Wouldn't it be cool if Harry set it out and it did crush the car?" Sirius asked elatedly.

**but at the moment it didn't look in the mood.**

"Aww, bummer," Sirius whined.

"Would you shut up?" Remus snapped angrily, "You're beginning to sound like this Dudley kid,"

**In fact, it was fast asleep.**

**Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils**.

**"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.**

**"Do it again," Dudley ordered**

**Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.**

**"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.**

"Leave that poor snake alone!" Alice huffed, folding her arms across her chest angrily.

**Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard for a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up - at least he got to visit the rest of the house.**

**The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were level with Harry's.****  
><strong>**It winked.**

"Why on Earth is a snake _winking_ at my son?" Lily asked. Everyone else shrugged.

**Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.**

**The snake jerked its head towards Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly: "I get that all the time."**

"My son is talking to a snake!" James cried.

"Maybe he's a parselmouth!" Sirius replied.

"The snake isn't doing anything! They're not even talking!" Remus shouted, making both boys jump out of their skin.

**"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying." ****The snake nodded vigorously.  
>"Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.<strong>

"So Harry may be a parselmouth, so what? We'll love him all the same, right James?" Lily asked, glowering at the boy she knew she was going to marry.

"Ur, right," James nodded.

**The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.  
>Boa Constrictor, Brazil.<br>"Was it nice there?"**

**The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see - so you've never been to Brazil?"**

**As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"**

**Dudley came waddling towards them as fast as he could. "Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs.**

**Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.**

"I don't get it, what's happened?" Frank and Alice asked.

**Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished.**

"Woot! Go Harry you badass!" Sirius exclaimed, jumping up and punching the air. James and Remus sniggered at Sirius' immaturity whilst Frank and Alice shot him worried glances.

"If you idiots don't mind, I'd like to continue reading," Lily snapped.

**The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out on to the floor - people throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits. As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, " Brazil, here I come ... Thanksss, amigo." **

**The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.**

**"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"**

**The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg,**

"I wish it bloody _did_ bite his leg off," Lily commented nastily.

**while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But, worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"**

"YOU IDIOT! NOW HARRY'S GOING TO GET INTO A LOT OF TROUBLE!" Lily shouted, and James joined in.

"I BET THAT WAS YOUR INTENTION YOU FURRY LITTLE RAT!"

**Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals,"**

"You bastard," Sirius snarled.

**before he collapsed into a chair and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.**

**Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking in to the kitchen for some food. He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died.**

**Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead.**

"The killing curse," Remus said weakly.

**This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where the green light came from.**

**He couldn't remember his parents at all.**

Lily let out a strangled sob, and James, who thought it was his duty to protect Lily, scooted over to comfort her.

**His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.**

**When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family.**

"Where the hell are we?" Sirius asked, meaning himself and Remus.

"That," James said, "Is a very good question."

**Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. ****A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking woman dressed in all green has waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple cloak had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day, then walked away without another word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.**

**At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.**

"Harry is not odd! He's unique!" Alice snapped.

"Well, that's the end of the chapter, who else would like to read?" Lily asked quietly.

"I will," Sirius replied, and Lily handed him the book. He turned the page, "Here comes more adventure... I think."

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><p><em>I hope it was satisfactory for you guys! :) After all, you all deserve nothing but the best. <em>

_I'm sorry for the late update, I'll try and update sooner, I promise. _

_Read and review!_

_muchlove,  
>imafeckingstarr xxx <em>


	4. The Letters from No One

_**Reading Harry Potter**_

_**By imafeckingstarr **_

_Summary: Remus Lupin stumbles across in the Library a book from the future – Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. Taking the book and heading off to the Head's dorm, they sit and read this book along with Lily Evans, Frank Longbottom and Alice Little, learning all about the future. Are they able to change the future for the better, or will all their efforts be merely useless?_

A/N: You guys… you guys are awesome. Thank you so much for all the positive reviews. My favourite was from MoonGCyn, really made me smile, so thank you. Thanks to everyone. Enough with my ramblings, and on with the chapter! Oh, please check out **The Adventure of a Marauder** to see what the Marauders and Mel are up to too!

* * *

><p>'<em>The Letters from No One'<em>

There was a flash of blue as a letter appeared in front of Sirius' eyes. Before Sirius could read it, Remus snatched it from him. "_Dear whoever is reading this," _He read aloud, _"It's probably Remus. Have you taken the letter out of Sirius' hands? I bet you have. Throughout the course of all seven books I will be sending people that will be able to explain these happenings better than I. Look at it this way, you'll meet people from the future… Have fun! _

_ERB." _

Everyone looked at each other. Sirius shrugged, "The girls may be hot," Alice and Lily glowered at him. Nervously, Frank nudged Sirius, silently begging for him to start reading the next chapter.

Sirius cleared his throat apprehensively, and there was another flash of blue light and a girl with bright red hair appeared in the middle of the room. "That was horrible… aren't… aren't most of you, y'know, dead?" Ginny Weasley asked as she looked at her surroundings.

"And you are?" Sirius asked rudely, narrowing his eyes at the unexpected female.

Ginny glared at him, sending him cowering behind Lily, screaming, "EVANS SAVE MEEEEEEE!"

"I'm Ginny Weasley… I was in the garden with Harry when there was a flash of blue light… AND YOU'RE A YOUNG SIRIUS BLACK!" She yelled suddenly, pointing at Sirius as if he was a bomb. "Bloody hell! YOU'RE HARRY'S PARENTS! Merlin, this is so cool,"

"You know Harry?" James questioned eagerly. Lily looked at Ginny expectantly, silently demanding for every little detail about her son.

"Yeah, you could say… you could say we're friends," Ginny grinned, "So, you guys are reading a book?"

Remus explained to Ginny that they stumbled across a book about Harry's first year at Hogwarts, and that once they finished the book they were going to be sent the next one in the series.

Ginny paled, "A-all his y-years?"

Frank frowned, "What's wrong?"

Ginny breathed, "Times are awful where I'm from. Voldemort's back, Harry is in more danger every day… the Ministry are idiots, trying to help him when really they're only making matters worse. They want the wizarding world to believe that Harry's working with the Ministry so it looks like they've got 'the chosen one' on their side. I'm in my fifth year at school, and things just seem to be getting worse… Dumbledore's life is being threatened, my brother was poisoned, and a girl on the Gryffindor Quidditch team was cursed. You can't trust anyone, even at school."

Mouths agape, the marauders plus Lily, Alice and Frank looked astounded. "Merlin…" Frank muttered.

"Sirius was about to read the next chapter…" Alice continued and Ginny just nodded.

"**The Letters from No-One**," Sirius read aloud suddenly beaming, forgetting about all the awful stuff Ginny had just talked about. "This must mean his Hogwarts letter of acceptance, right?"

**The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.  
><strong>  
>There were many curses aimed at Sirius, or rather, the book that Sirius was holding and Sirius had to duck for cover, "NOT THE HAIR! ANYTHING BUT MY SEXY HAIR!" He yelled.<p>

**Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader.**

"I hate these kids, I absolutely hate them," Lily snarled, and Ginny nodded in agreement.

"I didn't know they were _that_ bad, I just thought Harry was being a little melodramatic when he said he didn't want to go back to Privet Drive because he hates his aunt, uncle and cousin…" Ginny muttered angrily.

**The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favourite sport: Harry Hunting.  
><strong>

"Harry what?" Remus snapped nastily.

"I have an idea," James said, "Let's go _Dursley_ hunting!"

**This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where he could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley.**

"Secondary school?" Frank asked.

"Secondary school is the next step in muggle education – you could say that Hogwarts is a secondary school as it's the second school most muggle-borns have ever attended, plus secondary school begins when you turn eleven," Lily explained.

**Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Harry, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.**

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Harry. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

**"No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilets never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick." Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he'd said.**

"Oh Harry," Ginny beamed, and Sirius and James exchanged mischievous looks.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats,

There were a couple of sniggers around the room, "That's what you get for having so many cats," Alice giggled.

**and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry watch television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.**

That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

Sirius c0uldn't help but laugh hysterically at the idea of orange coloured knickerbockers and maroon tailcoats. He thought the uniform sounded funny.

"You should see Vernon wearing it Sirius, it'll scar you forever," Lily shuddered, which only made him laugh harder. Once he was finished laughing, (which took him at least ten minutes) he continued to read.

**As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.**

"I second that," James snorted, the description of Dudley's school uniform made him want to laugh as loud as Sirius did. But the look Lily was giving him, he wasn't going to succumb to it.

Ginny grinned at how whipped Lily had James.

**There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in grey water.**

"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question.

"Your new school uniform," she said.

"She won't even buy him a _new_ school uniform!" Lily shrieked. Ginny, who was sitting beside Lily, covered her ears dramatically.

**Harry looked in the bowl again. "Oh," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet." **

**"Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dying some of Dudley's old things grey for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished." Harry seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue. He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High - like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.**

"That's not fair! You can buy your fat son _new_ clothes for a _new_ school, yet you can't even buy Harry a new bloody uniform? Pah!" Ginny growled angrily. Sirius, who was in sitting range of both Ginny and Lily, went and hid under a table.

"Sirius, what are you doing?" Alice asked him, a bemused expression on her face.

"Hiding, I could _die_." He whispered theatrically.

"Drama queen," Ginny sighed, rolling her eyes.

**Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.**

**They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.**

**"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.**

**"Make Harry get it."**

**"Get the mail, Harry."**

**"Make Dudley get it." **

"Wow, boy's got nerve," Sirius sniggered.

**"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley." Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill and - a letter for Harry.**

"That's definitely got to be his Hogwarts letter of acceptance, right?" James asked, and Ginny just nodded.

**Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives - he didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake: Mr. H. Potter, The Cupboard under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging Surrey. The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.**

**Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.**

"HIS HOGWARTS LETTER, WOOT! HE GOT IT!" Sirius cheered, dropping the book in the process.

"For Merlin's sake Sirius, act your age!" Lily snapped.

**"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.**

"Letter bombs? Why would there be _letter bombs_?" Ginny asked, infuriated.

"I'd send one," Remus mumbled, "Me too," Sirius agreed.

**Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.**

**Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.**

**"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk -"**

**"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!" **

"No!" Everyone groaned.

"Why, you fat hippogriff, would you rat Harry out about having a letter?" Sirius moaned. He shut up after he was given the infamous Ginny Weasley death glare.

**Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.**

**"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.**

**"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the greyish white of old porridge.**

**"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.**

"Why is he frightened?" Ginny asked.

Lily sighed and began to explain, "My sister, Petunia, is extremely jeal0us of my being here – she wanted to come too. But she's a muggle, so, you see how they'd act afraid. Sometimes when I'm at home she acts as if I don't exist, which believe me, is an improvement from all the horrible names she's given me,"

"So they're scared because Petunia's jealous?" Ginny frowned, "That's not a very good reason,"

"At the beginning of the book it said that she pretended she didn't have a sister, so I can only presume that she's scared someone will find out that I'm a witch and she'd be the one called a freak," Lily shrugged. 

**Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.**

**"Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!" They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.**

"Nicely done, fat boy," Sirius commented with a snigger.

**"I want to read that letter," he said loudly. **

"**I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."**

**"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.**

"Now that's just rude, give my godson his goddamn Hogwarts letter!" Sirius growled.

"If you don't shut up Sirius, I'm turning your hair green," Ginny threatened. Sirius covered his hair with the book, whimpering.

"Not the hair, anything but the hair!"

"Get reading then!" Ginny snapped, waving her wand in Sirius' direction threateningly.

**Harry didn't move.**

**"I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.**

**"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.**

**"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.**

**"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address - how could they possibly know where he sleeps. You don't think they're watching the house."**

**"Watching - spying - might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.**

"Idiot man! Wizards know all!" James commented dramatically.

**"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want -" Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.**

**"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything...**

**"But -"**

**"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense." That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.**

"You swore _what_?" Lily and James shouted.

"Like hell did you swear that my son could not do magic Petunia!" Lily growled. James just nodded his head in agreement, too angry for words.

**"Where's my letter." said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"**

**"No one, it was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly.**

**"I have burned it."**

"YOU'VE DONE WHAT!" The entire group yelled. Sirius, who was once again scared that his friends and Ginny would take their anger out on the book, hid under the table, muttering "not the hair, not the hair".

**"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily, "it had my cupboard on it." **

**"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.**

**"Er - yes, Harry - about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking... you're really getting a bit big for it... we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom.**

**"Why?" said Harry.**

"Kid, why're you complaining?" Frank asked in bemusement.

"Frank! Can't you clearly see that Harry just wants his letter and doesn't care where he sleeps as long as he figures out who's writing to him?" Alice sighed.

**"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now." The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbour's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favourite program had been cancelled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.**

**From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, "I don't want him in there... I need that room... make him get out..." Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.**

"Told you!" Alice said smugly.

**Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. **

"All that for a room?" Remus asked, horrified.

"Spoilt brat," Ginny hissed.

**Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.**

**When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one!'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive -'" With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind.**

"FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!" The boys chanted repeatedly, smirking at one another.

"Boys!" Alice and Lily chided, not at all impressed by their behaviour. Ginny sighed and waved her wand, and the boys instantly shut up. Waving her wand again, Sirius was able to speak.

"Another word out of you Sirius Black and I'll do something _much_ worse than a silencing charm,"

Sirius gulped, nodded and continued to read. Ginny waved her wand once more so the rest of the boys could speak, but she gave them the infamous Ginny Weasley death stare which shut them up for a while.

**After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand. **

**"Go to your cupboard - I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry.**

**"Dudley - go - just go." Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again. And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan.**

"Prongs, this boy has true Marauder potential!" Sirius exclaimed gleefully. Ginny laughed.

"You think he has potential now? You should see him in later years,"

Lily groaned, "Do I want to know about all the mischief my son causes?"

Ginny grinned knowingly, "Maybe,"

**The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.**

**He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door - Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat - something alive! Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea.**

"Poor Harry, he tried really hard for that plan to work," Alice sighed.

**Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. **

**Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink.**

**"I want -" he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes. Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.**

**"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."**

**"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon." **

**"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.**

"I'm glad we're nothing like you, you horrible, horrible man!" Lily spat.

**On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.**

"You'll get your letter one way or another Harry," Remus muttered reassuringly. He remained quite quiet, scribbling stuff down on the almost full piece of parchment that was brought to the group a chapter or so ago. "We're almost out of parchment, does anyone have anymore?"

"I'll get some Moony," James said, and he stood up to find some more.

**Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.**

**On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.**

**"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement.**

"Us, that's who," Sirius cried.

**On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.**

**"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today -" Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head.**

"What in the name of Merlin could that be?" Lily asked as she tried to stop herself from laughing at the image that had been produced in her head.

**Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one.**

"Go for it Harry! Rip open one of those letters and find out that you're really a wizard!" Frank and Remus cheered. Lily pressed her hands to her cheeks, hoping that her son manages to open a letter. Ginny, however, sat there casually, her arms folded as if she knew what was to happen next, which she did. 

**"Out! OUT!" Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall.**

**When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.**

**"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his moustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!" He looked so dangerous with half his moustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway.**

"Where on Earth would they be going?"

"Beats me Lily flower, beats me,"

**Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.**

"What's a—"

"Doesn't matter! Just keep reading!"  
><strong><br>They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. "Shake 'em off... shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.**

**They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.**

**Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering...**

**They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.**

**"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter. Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk." She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address: Mr. H. Potter Room 17 Railview Hotel Cokeworth.**

"Ha-ha! Shove that in your mouth and eat it, Dursley!" Sirius cackled.

Remus rolled his eyes, as did Frank, "If you were to give your words to Vernon Dursley, Sirius," Frank said, "he probably _would_ eat them."

**Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.**

**"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.**

**"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.**

**"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.**

"Indeed he has," James sniggered.

**It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley snivelled.**

**"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television." Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday - and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television - then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun - last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks.**

"You're supposed to make birthdays special!" Lily and Alice cried, outraged.

**Still, you weren't eleven every day. Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.**

**"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!" It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain; there was no television in there.**

**"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!" A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.**

**"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!" It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.**

**The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.**

**Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of crisps each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty crisp bags just smoked and shrivelled up.**

"A bag of crisps? _A bag of bleeding crisps?"_ Ginny yelled loudly.

"You forgot about the four bananas too..." Frank pointed out, but was shut up by Alice who merely glared at him.

**"Could do with some of those letters now, eh." he said cheerfully.**

**He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him up at all.**

**As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few mouldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.**

"That's not fair! Not fair at all!"

**The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.**

**Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did.**

**Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow.**

**Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that. And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise. Was the rock crumbling into the sea?**

**One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds... twenty ... ten...**

**nine - maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him - three... two... one...**

**BOOM.**

**The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.**

"Whoa, who could that be?"

"You'll find out in the next chapter, so continue reading!"

"Anyone else want to read?" Sirius asked.

There was another flash of bright blue light, and another person landed on the floor in the room, "I'll read if you like,"

"Hermione!" Ginny squealed as she stood up to hug the older girl. Hermione Granger smiled, "What is it that I'm reading, exactly?"

* * *

><p><em>I hope you liked it, and I'm sorry for the long wait! :)<em>

_Read and review!_

_muchlove,  
>imafeckingstarr xxx <em>


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